[A multicenter study of emergencies in basic general hospitals in Catalonia]

The demand of the hospital emergency services was evaluated by the analysis of 11650 emergencies seen during one week in 22 county hospitals. A modified ICHPPC-2 was used for the codification of diagnoses. The mean age of the patients was 30.6 years. The distribution through the days of the week was homogeneous and the duration of the hospital stay was lower than 2 hours in 85%. 80% of the patients went to the hospital by their own decision. The emergency cases were considered as non-justified in 22.4%, mild emergencies in 56.5%, and severe emergencies in 17%. 75.9% of patients were sent back to their homes, and 11.8% were admitted to the hospital. The predominant groups of emergencies were trauma (33.9%), respiratory diseases (11.8%), ill-defined signs and symptoms (9.3%), and osteomuscular (6.7%), digestive (5.8%) and infective (4.7%) diseases. The indispensable requirements to be collected for a better knowledge of emergency services are evaluated.